the cornerwarlock
by ARandomFangirler
Summary: "My name is Magnus," he informs Alec, and something in Alec's fine features rips him apart, turns him inside out. "I know," Alec half-snaps.


They call him the cornerwarlock, and he's easy to find if you know where to look.

Okay, well, scratch that. Magnus Bane is easy to find, full stop; it's hard to miss his glitter-streaked hair or his liquidly golden cat eyes. He's not exactly on a corner, either, though his apartment sort of faces in a corner-ly direction, and cornerwarlock is a cool nickname.

Of course, Magnus doesn't need the sort of favours associated with magic to perform it, but he finds mundane custom to be charming. There's a plaque dictating prices above his front door and while business is slow, it is never boring, or so he tells Catarina when she comes to visit from the hospital. Today, though, a nervous young man is stood hesitantly outside said front door according to the wards, and so Magnus is pulled out of another session of demonic summoning by the need for money.

The boy - because he's no more than a boy, really, only around eighteen as betrayed by the messily sharp contours of his jaw and cheekbones - has the most beautiful blue eyes Magnus has ever seen. They are as clear and dark as lakewater, and when Magnus looks at the stark black-and-white contrast of his hair upon his pale face, a familiar name rests on the tip of his tongue, as heavy as sin. But while this boy shares the same colouring and desperation as Will, Will died nearly a hundred years ago, and so Magnus swallows Will's name and focuses on the present.

"What do you want?" Magnus asks. Maybe he sounds a little harsh, a little hungover still, because the boy flinches. When he does so, Magnus can see the curling blackness of a rune pressing against the corner of his collarbone, and tells himself that he does not feel disappointed. Nephilim rarely dally with warlocks.

The boy rocks back and forth on his heels. "To see if you were real?" he suggests, but he sounds as if he's lying to himself. "My name is Alexander Lightwood. Alec."

"I've heard of you," Magnus frowns, though he distinctly recalls Alec being a toddler and not eighteen. "And undoubtedly, you have heard of me. Well, I am real, little Shadowhunter, and I do not play games. You can run along now, unless…"

He trails off and raises his eyebrows at Alec, who flushes a lovely scarlet. Yes, this is not Will, but Magnus knew that already. The flush is just confirmation.

"I'm kinda cold," Alec blurts out, and then blushes even deeper. "Uh. Sure. That's it. I don't suppose you have anything for that?"

It's no wonder Alec is cold, with how frayed and holed his worn grey sweater is, but people don't pay Magnus for fashion advice, much to his chagrin. "I have something for everything," he drawls, running a hand through his hair. "But there's a price."

Alec sticks his hand in his jean pocket and brings out the following: fifty-seven cents, a misshapen silver coin, an unopened mint chapstick and two pressed bluebells. He places them into Magnus's waiting palm.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue," Alec explains, nodding to the plaque. There's a seriousness within him that is so very attractive, and Magnus finds himself reaching for the flowerbulb in his pocket just to make Alec smile.

"Plant this in ashes," he instructs. "Water it with herbal oil. Once it grows, eat each blossom."

The flowerbulb is worth far more than what Alec is offering, and Alec probably knows this since he hesitates before taking it. But Alec does smile in the end, a smile that lights his angled face right up, and _no, this is not Will_ , but Magnus doesn't find that he minds very much.

* * *

Alec returns two weeks later. It is raining, and water has turned his hair into inkstrokes that stain his porcelain face, his ratty sweater into a suffocating rag. He's breathing heavily when Magnus opens the door, and Magnus's own breath catches at the sight of him.

It's not love. Alec just knocks the breath out of him.

"You again," Magnus says by way of greeting. Catarina is napping in his front room, so he's careful to keep his voice down but in a sexy, Heath Ledger-esque manner. Alec, being a Shadowhunter, most likely doesn't know who Heath Ledger is. A shame. "I don't suppose you're here filled with oodles of praise for my flawless work?"

Alec looks slightly flustered. "Well - yes," he stutters. "But I can't sleep."

Magnus is busy opening his mouth to make all kinds of filthy comments when Alec unfolds a faded, crumpled stick-figure drawing. The head is vaguely football-shaped, and the mouth goes off the page.

"The first person I ever made," Alec explains as Magnus's jaw slowly shuts. "I mean, that's kind of like a firstborn, right?"

"Close enough," Magnus agrees, secretly resolving to test this theory as an ingenious workaround for illegal ancient spells that called for a firstborn sacrifice. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and he takes a ring from his left hand - one he bought not quite for the price of a London townhouse, but close enough - and slips it onto Alec's middle finger. "Twist it before you go to sleep, and it'll get rid of your worries."

"How did you know I was-" Alec cuts himself off, and shakes his head, as if he doesn't want to know. Most people don't. He is beautiful, Magnus thinks, in the way that broken glass is beautiful, in the way that an angel dragged from heaven can be. "Thank you." Alec says instead, and his voice drips with sincerity, thick and oozing as honey.

Behind him in the front room, Catarina stirs and sits up.

"Go," Magnus orders, and Alec smiles at him, a fragile thing, and sets off back down the stairs. Magnus shuts the door.

"Friend of yours?" Catarina yawns, tightening her white topknot that has flopped upon her head like freshly fallen snow. Magnus doesn't much like the knowing note in her voice.

"No," he says, and it isn't a lie, even if he wishes it was. "Just a customer."

Catarina pokes him with her socked foot. "Still calling yourself a cornerwarlock?"

"Still working yourself to death?" Magnus swiftly changes the subject, and she doesn't press it further.

* * *

"Cornerwarlock," Alec pants, hammering on Magnus's front door. His pretty blue eyes are manic, and his skin shines iridescent with sweat. Magnus opens it wearing only sweatpants, and Alec immediately casts his eyes down. As if he's used to it. Magnus hates that he's used to it.

"My name is Magnus," he informs Alec, and something in Alec's fine features rips him apart, turns him inside out.

"I know," Alec half-snaps. "I...I am sad and scared and trapped and I don't know what to do and _please-_ "

"Maybe you should stop lying to yourself," Magnus suggests softly, and Alec recoils as if he's been hit. _Nevermind._ "Or do they indoctrinate you so deeply you forget how to love?"

"Please," Alec begs. Magnus notices that he's holding a MAC lipstick between his fingers like a lifeline, and Alec offers the tube to him. "A thousand kisses in potentia, see? First, true love's, death's…"

"I get it," says Magnus. "Although you don't strike me as the type to appreciate a good colour like this."

"It's my sister's," Alec says impatiently, and Magnus feels as if he's been shot, right in the chest. The world is black and white and his memory betrays him.

"Cecily?" he whispers, and Alec blinks.

"No," he shakes his head. "Her name's Isabelle. Look, it's your colour."

Magnus opens it cautiously and presses it to his mouth. It's a nice shade of red, almost orangey, and Alec is right. It does suit him. Alec, dressed in sweatpants and a too-big t-shirt, could possibly learn from his sister. Isabelle Lightwood most likely does not spend her time soliciting cornerwarlocks. It's a hefty enough sum for Magnus to scrabble for one of his oversized peacoats, strewn across the floor, and hand it to Alec.

"I'm not cold," Alec says in confusion.

"I would hope not," Magnus replies, "considering how much that flower is worth. But that's not what this is for. Put it on and spin around three times in it, and you shall be free."

Alec slips the coat on, and slowly begins to trot in a circle. Magnus grabs his arm.

"Not inside," he warns.

"This seems sort of illegal," Alec raises his thin black brows. "Shadowhunters aren't supposed to perform magic."

"It's the coat that's magic, not you," Magnus sighs, then eyes Alec up and down. "Though I suppose you _could_ be magic, in your own way."

Alec's face is as hot and red as his sister's stolen lipstick. He murmurs a thanks and leaves, and Magnus is reeling.

Later, he calls Tessa, and traces the Lightwood bloodline just to _check_ that Alec is not Will reincarnated. He's not, but he is Cecily's great-whatever grandson, and Magnus supposes that that's why Alec is the closest thing to Will he has seen in a long time. If memory serves correctly, too, then Isabelle - Alec's sister - will have the ruby necklace that Magnus bought so long ago for a love so direly lost. The world turns full circle. Magnus tries not to think of a Herondale who could turn to shadow, and definitely tries not to think of a Lightwood soaring over Manhattan.

* * *

"Magnus," Alec calls, and Magnus appears at the doorway, pleased to be actually dressed this time. Alec's sweater is actually _almost_ holeless, and in a certain light his jeans could be skinny. Perhaps he has a date, Magnus thinks, noting the backpack slung over his shoulders. The thought makes Magnus deflate a lot more than it should.

"Three times is traditional, you know," Magnus tells him, leaning against the doorframe. Up close, he can see the faded, silvery scars of Alec's runes and the pinkness of his full mouth. "Shadowhunters are all about tradition. I thought that perhaps I wouldn't see you again."

"I'm not like most Shadowhunters," Alec murmurs, and he looks up at Magnus through lashes as long and black as soot. His eyes seem very bright. "I come here with a fire-flower, a sleeping ring and a winged coat. And I want-" Alec swallows, "I want something that can't be bought."

Alec slips off the backpack and hands it to Magnus. "My problems couldn't be solved by magic," he says softly. "Because you were right. I was the only one who could solve them."

"I see," says Magnus, who doesn't. "There are many things that cannot be bought, Alexander."

Alec shifts his weight, and _ah,_ Magnus gets it now, he really does. A more cynical man would tell Alec that love _can_ be bought, if you know the right potions and spells, but when Magnus looks at Alec, he doesn't want to be cynical. "But you shall have this one," he adds, and they meet each other in the middle.

Alec tastes like cinders and fire-flowers. Magnus would very much like to burn.

* * *

They call them the cornerwarlocks, and they're easy to find. Alright, so Alec isn't a warlock, and he isn't exactly easy to find sometimes, but it's the thought that counts.

And Magnus - Magnus knows where to look.


End file.
